3rd Test, Day 1: England 267 (J Smith 89, B Duckett 52, G Atkinson 39, Sajid Khan 6-128, Noman Ali 3-88) lead Pakistan 73-3 by 194 runs
From the sport that once brought you leg theory, this was more like chaos theory. Before this week nobody quite knew what you would get if you spent the build-up to a game roasting the wicket in a makeshift fan oven like a pale, flat chestnut, but it turns out the answer is wickets, 13 of them falling across an opening day of drama and frequent befuddlement.
Of the 16 batters who tried only Ben Duckett, who scored 52 before being undone by one that kept unsportingly low, and Jamie Smith, who scored a vital and hugely impressive 89, looked at all comfortable at the crease. Thanks in large part to Smith, England posted a score of 267 in what was the longest innings – since people started noting these things – in which only spin was bowled. In response Pakistan reached stumps on 73 for three, with four of their batters having reached the teens and none so far getting beyond them.
There had been a romantic idea before play began that the first day might provide calm, perhaps even ideal, batting conditions, and an opportunity for whichever side batted first to take a stranglehold on the game. While the players prepared for the start the ground staff posed for photographs behind the stumps at one end: their preparation for this game has tested both their ability and their ingenuity, and clearly they were feeling proud of it.
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Having carried off the cover and wheeled away their patio heaters and industrial fans what was revealed was a mosaic of cracks marked here and there with areas of superficial scratches, evidence of the raking several England players spoke about in the build-up. Informed opinion prematch predicted an initially placid pitch that would at some point deteriorate and as it turned out they were right – but nobody was expecting that it would start deteriorating within half an hour.
As Duckett and Zak Crawley made their way to the middle minds drifted back to England’s last game here in 2022, when they both scored centuries on their way to a partnership of 233, scored at a jaunty 6.5 an over. On the first day of that match England reached a serene 200 without loss shortly after lunch; at the same stage of this one Gus Atkinson was walking out to bat.
The first sign of trouble came from the first ball of the day, bowled by Sajid Khan, which turned sharply to beat both batter and wicketkeeper. It was a warning the openers heeded, batting carefully for the first 10 overs while the bowlers felt their way into the match. Then it all started happening.
Extra turn and unpredictable bounce combined to get England wobbling, and the tourists lost their first five wickets for just 42 runs as they crumbled faster even than the ground beneath their feet. Like Duckett, Ollie Pope fell to a delivery that kept low, an unfortunate elongation of a miserable spell with the bat – he has averaged 23.18 in his last 11 innings (and 10.1 in 10 if you take out the anomalous 154 against Sri Lanka at the Oval) and this was the third time in as many innings, and only 26 balls, that he has been dismissed by Sajid.
But the pitch cannot be blamed for all of the wickets to fall: Crawley miscued a cut to backward point, precisely the dismissal Pakistan planned for him, wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan disco dancing with Noman Ali in celebration; Joe Root had scored just five when he played back to a Sajid delivery which he should have defended easily had he gone forward, and a bit of extra pace from Sajid did for Harry Brook, who completely missed a sweep and was bowled, having also scored five.
When Ben Stokes edged a catch to slip just after lunch England were 118 for six and in a hole even deeper than the footmarks Pakistan’s pair of diminutive spinners had somehow already scoured into the surface. The situation was rescued by Smith and Atkinson, who added 105 for the seventh wicket while displaying control that must have delighted but also slightly concerned their team-mates.
They clearly benefited from facing a pair of tiring bowlers, as an extraordinary marathon effort from Sajid and Noman neared its end. Between them they bowled the first 42 overs of England’s innings, and following their double-handed heroics in the second Test in Multan by the time they were finally split they had bowled in unbroken partnership for 89.5 overs across three innings and two matches, and taken 20 wickets in the process.
It was only once they were split that Smith and Atkinson felt able to accelerate, with Atkinson targeting the leg-spin of Zahid Mahmood – off whom he scored four or his five boundaries – and Smith tucking into the returning Sajid, who provided four of his six sixes and all five of his fours.
At one stage they scored 39 off four overs bowled by that pair, prompting the return of Noman and, four balls later, the end of Atkinson, who miscued one back into the bowler’s hands. Smith top-edged a slog soon afterwards to give Zahid his only wicket, and England’s innings was all but done.
Pakistan had to deal with the novelty of seam and the glare of a dipping sun, and for a while their innings threatened to go off the rails. Having reached 35 without loss three wickets fell for 11 runs, with Shoaib Bashir, Jack Leach and Atkinson claiming one apiece, before Shan Masood and Saud Shakheel combined no navigate a safe path to stumps. – Guardian
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